An incubator is a medical unit which provides a controlled environment for a premature or otherwise delicate or sick infant. The incubator isolates the infant from the outside atmosphere which might be the source of infections or which might be inadequate to aid the infant in overcoming his difficulty.
Infant incubators generally are provided with control means for adjusting the environment within the incubator (i.e., the temperature, humidity, and oxygen content of the atmosphere within the incubator) and display means for indicating the conditions of the environment within the incubator and the condition of an infant positioned within the incubator (i.e., respiration rate and skin temperature). All known incubators have the controls and displays mounted on the front of the base of the incubator and below the hood. This location of the controls and displays is inconvenient to those attending to the care of an infant within the incubator. One must bend down to read the displays and, when the front door of the incubator is open to provide complete access to an infant, one must work around the open front door. In addition, in order to observe the displays which indicate the conditions within the incubator and the condition of the infant, one must be right at the incubator and cannot observe these displays from a remote location.